A Multi-Fandom Series of The 1960's

“The fans of this pairing aren’t but there is something upsetting them so much to feel sorry for her or it stems back to the playful deviousness. Again, I hope it’s playful!”

As it turns out, it is. Thank you, Goddess, Mother Mary, Diana, Artemis, Theotokos, Guan-Yin, Hecate, any goddess out there! Truly, I thank you! There are wonderful people who pursue RPG derivatives of Angelique on many DS fanpages and they expound words to the effect of, “He lusts me, and that is good enough.” Yes, my sweet Angelique. It is good enough. In fact it is what I predisposed long, long ago.

However that is not the only element of some fans. I highly admire the playful deviousness. They know what they are about but a few others believe in the romanticism. They simply and strait-forwardly like Angelique/Barnabas, whether it’s because Parker/Frid look good together for them, or they see a romanticism of destruction turning to the wonder of beauty regardless of all the deaths that happened, whoever much mattered in those deaths, but somehow things turned around. It’s a beauty to be savoured, a power that could not be withheld. It is Angelique/Barnabas, it happened, it’s royal, it’s somehow against all odds.

Very good. 🙂

Sadly, after that, are several who identify with Angelique as pushing the limits, offering herself beyond the call, regardless of whether that caused destruction to so many, she still deserves far more than she got. Why? I can only speculate. Is it because she was picked from convenience? Is it because she was pursued for lust, mistook that for love, and wanted to make the biggest stink about it all that the soap opera world ever witnessed? Perhaps…

But what of the fans of her? Some are as listed above. They are playful, they are romantics. These things make sense. But there are people who become incredibly upset that Barnabas did not love her. What of them?

One way or another, they either are, or believe they are, someone who deserved better, someone who was overused, abused, discarded, left to rot. (My 7-Month troll, unless she desires to continue further, is a prime example of this.) They are so self-absorbed they can’t remember what happened yesterday because they are still so fixated on what happened seventeen years ago. The very idea that who they want does not want them is decidedly hostile, even if there are scores of friends surrounding them who do want these individuals for themselves. Those people who care matter not. It is the annihilation or the possession toward those they are obsessed with. The fact that these fans care so much about that? Waste of faculties, waste of life, waste of humanity. It troubles me. It troubles me greatly. (And I often feel that way when human energy and potential is lost.)

It is one thing to enjoy a love/hate relationship on a television show or even in a book series. It is another entirely to make it a life-long habit. 😦

#2) Julia Hoffman

You thought #1 was bad? This one is worse. 😦

I’ve scoured for fans of the pairing I found obvious for a relief series. I don’t want popularity. I want my people. Just to get my series finished with those who would enjoy talking about it so I, myself, will have the healthy human interaction I require as a human being to complete it.

In my studies I found Barnabas Collins had longings for:

Maggie Evans

Victoria Winters

Rachel Drummond

Kitty Soames, because she was a reincarnation of Josette Dupres

and

Roxanne Drew.

And he is/was undeniably and hopelessly in love with Josette Dupres, who loved or loves him equally as strong.

As I say in one of my podcasts, it makes sense that there are stories of this pairing, but the extreme wealth of it without an even-split? Stacks of Dark Shadows fanzines since the 1980s have been printed with stories almost exclusively of this pairing.

I wonder who was in charge of that objective? I wonder, but the point is a condition of control.

This almost destroyed my Sherlock Holmes mind attempting to discover the reason for it… but I finally did.

Doctor Julia Hoffman, an icon of Women’s Liberation in the 1960s. A strong woman, a doctor, a psychologist, an intellectual… but with one unfortunate failing:

Unrequited love.

Ah, haven’t we all had it? Well… I guess I started earlier than some: 5th grade. I was rejected. 6th grade? A few successes which led to uncertainty and then more rejection. Sad… And later? More attempts, more fails, more weirdness, more alienation, more boyfriends, more plain friends,more even odder relationships. More going steady, a few one-night-stands, more sex-less make-out flings, more bizarre entanglements between friendship, lust, the idea of true-love… and then?

I got married…

to the best friend I ever had. ❤

Hey, maybe we all can’t be so lucky. All I know is we reciprocated each other in romance and sexuality. I experienced my variety of love until I found the person who cared the most about me. I’ve never had to make him love me, I never thought he should, he truthfully does.

As it turns out there are the sympathizers and then there are the extremists of Julia/Barnabas. The extremists are the types who put their entire lives in the pursuance of partners who treated them miserably. Their partners took all they had to offer, either cheated on them or spent all the profit from their lovers to their own self-indulgence, and then eventually left these hard working sweethearts in the dust.

All right. Let’s say there is a strong woman out there who feels unloved, under-appreciated, unhappy or all of the above. What is the healthy course of action for her?

Go on a journey of new experiences, explore those as well as herself, write her own story and grow from that.

Ah, yes. That is the healthy course of action. Very good. 🙂

What is the unhealthy course of action?

“Read my Julia/Barnabas fanfiction! READ IT! READ IT OR ELSE!”

Okay, only a few of these people get that extreme. But generally the unhealthy course of action is to identify with Julia Hoffman’s unrequited love so strongly that Julia herself becomes unimportant, as well as Barnabas Collins. It’s the symbolism of uniting them and convincing others to make it fit into their heads. Julia sympathizers don’t do this. Julia extremists do. Push out a romance that never occurred on Dark Shadows. Push it all over the place, pursue it to the ends of the Earth. Make others believe in it. Write more stories about them, create a new universe of Dark Shadows outside what was aired on television and not following the original characters behaviour, at least in this aspect. (And by which, scare other fans into silence.)

Barnabas Collins is now a symbol of the man who should have loved someone and is no longer himself.

This is what makes Julia sympathizers different from the extremists. Sympathizers enjoy the stories and feel better.

Extremists do not. They briefly feel better if they’ve won a fan over and then go looking for more people to pursue it with. They harness this relationship as what should have happened in their own lives. They neither Eat, Pray, nor Love. They are threatened by other stories of Barnabas loving a different lady, especially a “sweet-young-thing”. They criticize anyone who gets in their way, they angrily shake their fists at Barnabas Collins for not loving Julia. They aren’t relieved by their stories except briefly. They write more trying to believe it’s true or could have happened. The fact that these fans care so desperately about that? Waste of faculties, waste of life, waste of humanity. It troubles me. It troubles me greatly.

“Well you just wouldn’t understand, Daryl!”

Oh, wouldn’t I?

I have created a radio drama in podcast form, in audio, to see what would happen if all of these characters got the help they needed from other spooky characters. I created it to share in the expectation I’d find several people who wanted to discuss it with me and find people of like mind. For friendship and help. I did this with all of my empathy, talent, savings, hopes, and dreams of what it could be and perhaps still can be. I received silence for 19 months for all of my pains with only the text. Now it’s downloaded continually and I barely hear from anyone enjoying it.

I live a lonely life looking for friendship and have been cast aside by many friends and relations. I made people laugh and they didn’t reciprocate me with discussion about it. Many still do not. They download a free entertainment that has turned my life upside-down from so much lack of report to it’s enjoyment from presumably uncaring, but mainly silent people, many of whom are too scared to admit they did so. For my love and hurt I am receiving the same silence Barnabas gives Julia in answer to her romantic yearning for him.

I have also worked in medicine and been a therapist, a teacher, a helper, with a deep understanding of psychology.

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I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Love the Aggresive Julia picture! “Read my Barnabas/Julia Fanfiction or else!” Whoa. Oh, that’s a lovely couple picture you posted when you talked out finding your soul mate in your husband. But yep, Barnabas did lust after Angelique and regretted it (probably hoping that she’ll be a distant memory in the past, but we know what happened), and he was Julia’s eye candy and unrequited love interest (until the Powers That Be came up with the Epilogue). Will there be a 3, 4,5, and 6 addition to this?

Yeah, not many get that extreme but some really do, and when you think about the stacks of fanzines and who was likely in control of what was printed the idea of it being “the most popular pairing” falls into question.

Even I have had people throw their Julia/Barnabas fanfiction at me. Not quite in an “or else” fashion but mainly as this thing where they don’t really care what you think as long as they know you read it or something. It seems less about writing and reflection and more about drawing a line.

Plus the “epilogue” is a suggestion, and ought to be considered such since Willie Loomis is pretty much dismissed entirely. I think I’ve done the run on pairings analysis. They’re all here in the archives. My relief in the studying has FINALLY come to pass. Hopefully it will help people who thought they were all alone in other pairings. (*waves* Hey, folks! You really aren’t alone. Really! And I don’t believe you’re in the minority either.)

But what I would love to do is expound on the virtues of Julia sympathizers. Because of this trait there are a ton more that are incredibly helpful, as you likely understand through the friendship you and I have achieved. *hugs*

Oh, well it’s on iTunes, podomatic, podbay.fm, and archive.org, and the scripts are at fanfiction.net with links on my profile for the various versions. Feel free to email me. That’s the best way to chat. ^_^